Tuesday 29 September 2015

BBC promo pictures - Under The Lake

It’s tuesday, so the publicity pictures for Saturday’s episode have been released by the BBC.


The quaffed pack-shot image shows The Doctor wearing his hoodie/Paul Smith jumper combination yet again.
I’d quite like this image, if it wasn’t for Jenna’s vacant expression!



Sonic shades on a budget

If you’re on the look out for a pair of genuine Ray-Ban Wayfarers - sorry sonic shades - one of my readers has spotted somewhere to get them a shade cheaper. Sorry about the pun.

Topman - the source of Matt Smith’s series five skinny jeans - currently has genuine Ray-Ban available on their website.


TOPMAN - Ray-Ban Wayfarer Sunglasses
These are £10 cheaper than the official Ray-Ban price on their own website.

And if you are wondering what to do with the £10 you saved - you can always blow the lot on a pair of Topman’s own brand sunglasses - which are a dead ringer for the Ray-Bans!

TOPMAN - Black 50s Classic Sunglasses
I’m sure the shape of the glasses differ only for copyright reasons, but otherwise they are a superb alternative if you are on a tight budget!

Sunday 27 September 2015

Misty Mountain - RedBubble replica t-shirt

For those who missed out on grabbing a Misty Mountain t-shirt when they were available at House Of Fraser, one of my readers has spotted a possible alternative.

Ryan posted a link on my earlier posting about the shirts, so you may have missed it.



Looking at the original shirt, I would suggest getting it no the pale grey base, rather than a stark white.

And at a little over £17, the price is pretty good too!

Catch it while you can, in case the copyright guys at House Of Fraser have it taken down.

Tuesday 22 September 2015

BBC promo pictures - The Witch's Familiar

It’s less than a week to The Witch's Familiar on Saturday, and the BBC have issued the publicity photos for the episode.

There’s a new photocall picture, this time with The Doctor wearing his Sonic Shades.


Plus there are a couple more images from the introduction of the boy Davros.


Tuesday 15 September 2015

BBC promo pictures - The Magician’s Apprentice

With less than a week to go before season 9 opens with a bang, the BBC have released a clutch of promo images from the first episode, The Magician’s Apprentice.

Having seen the episode they don’t give much away, and understandably steer away from the big spoilers that will melt the internet on Saturday night!

Here’s the choice images showing The Doctor.

Thursday 10 September 2015

Series nine - BAFTA Cardiff preview

Today is the preview of the opening two-parter for series nine. As far as I understand it, only the first part has been previewed to date, so seeing the second half of the adventure is a real bonus.

The event is being organised by Welsh BAFTA and is being held in the Cineworld cinema in central Cardiff. It’s not the biggest of auditoriums, with only around 450 seats available, and from what I later gathered around 100 of these were reserved for BAFTA members.

Being a run of the mill cinema the seats are un-numbered, so I'm seeing it as a potential bun fight to get the best seats.

With my work pattern these days I have the luxury of being my own boss and can choose when I travel, so I booked myself on the earliest train to Cardiff, without getting penalised by high fares. As a result I touched down in the Welsh capital around half-noon. My hotel was a short walk from the station and after I dumped off my bags and got changed, I found it was an even shorter walk to the cinema.

I was prepared for a queue of excited fan outside, but there was no-one.
Inside I knew T was at the right place as there was a TARDIS parked qt the bottom of the escalators.

The staff were only just getting themselves ready for the day and had no information as to where the queue was or would be starting!
A friendly member of BBC staff came to see me and suggested waiting in the bar area on level 2, a level below where the screening will be happening in roughly five hours.
Unintentionally I was first in the queue!

As the afternoon progressed people arrived in dribs and drabs, with one of my recent clients being second in line! Slowly the bar area was filling up and a number of people who tried to assemble a queue upstairs were quickly slapped down and sent back to the bar to wait.

With an hour or so to go, and no planning or direction for the BBC or BAFTA (both said the other was in charge!) we formed our own queue in the bar, with everyone respectfully forming a line in the order they roughly arrived.

Entry was strictly by guest list, so everyone had to be individually ticked off on THE list before they could enter. In charge of the list was a lovely member of BAFTA staff who seemed to be just as excited to be there as us!

The list had the benefit of slowing down the rush, so it was with ease that myself and some friends just walked to the front row and bagged ourselves the best spot.

Now, as you can see we our view of the screen was point-blank, but I was thinking more about the Q&A session after, for which we will be getting the BEST view.



I was one of only about three people who came in costume, and I took advantage of the chance to get a picture with Natalie, who was not only dressed as Clara, but wearing the same costume as in the big promo picture on the cinema screen!

It took a while for everyone to get seated, but there was a great atmosphere so it didn’t seem as long.

Steven Moffat introduced the episodes, appealing for us all to keep the spoilers to ourselves - something which I advocate - so NO SPOILERS HERE!

I will say the opening adventure is very exciting; the opening section will please a lot of fans of the classic series; at times edge of your seat; often jaw dropping. Now that I knew what the BIG-BIG spoiler is, it’s going to be interesting to see if it is kept until broadcast. I genuinely hope it is.


Once the screening was over, it was time to get the cast and producers out for their Q&A session.

Hosting the evening, as they seem to always do when these things are held in Cardiff, was Jason Mohammad. He appeared in a couple of David Tennant adventures playing a newsreader - something he did as his day-job at the time!

He introduced us to Brian Michin, the producer; Steven Moffat, lead writer; plus Jenna Colman and Peter Capaldi.

Peter just made it to the event in time, having been filming all day on the Christmas special. Jenna and co had been in the audience watching with us the whole time. Looking back, that was a clue.

There was some interesting questioning and some equally interesting answers.

The BBC have posted a couple of good clips on their YouTube channel, which you can watch below.

Peter talked about finding the electric guitar for the episode, which was bought on the Denmark Street.



It’s interesting how a slightly flippant remark by Peter about having David Bowie as a guest star in the next series was picked up by the press who ran with it.





Once the Q&A was over, they asked us to stay in our seats while they took a group shot of the panel with us as the background.

I wasn’t expecting that, so as we stood up Peter stepped forward and I instinctively put my hand out which he shook! He was greeted by several other fans around him and we took our places for the photo.


If you look closely, thats me between Peter and Jenna!

Suddenly getting to Cardiff early, queuing for five hours and getting front row was WORTH IT!!!
Peter Capaldi & Jenna Coleman at Cardiff screening - in pictures - Wales Online

Series 9 - promo images IMPLEMENTED!!!

I always find it interesting how designers at magazine publishers can take the standard issue promo images and fashion them into eye catching covers that grab your attention on the newsstand.

So I thought I’d take a little time to compare the composited covers with their source images.


You can always rely on Doctor Who Magazine to come up with the goods when there’s some great images to use.

They cleverly created the classic back-to-back pose from two solo photocalls of The Doctor and Missy. You’d never know they weren’t in front of the camera together.


SFX Magazine on the other hand went for one of Peter Capaldi’s trademark attack eyebrows poses, cropping in tight for maximum impact.

The Big Issue opted to use the more melancholy stare of The Doctor in his sombre navy crombie ensemble, curiously doing their best to obscure the casual Label Lab t-shirt.